DistroWatch has a review of PCLinuxOS 2007. “While they are not quite there yet, PCLinuxOS are certainly on the right track to achieving their goal of being ‘radically simple’. Currently the system feels like a bit of a mixed bag, but if they can start to make their own path a little more independent there will be no stopping them.”
http://www.thepcspy.com/blog/pclinuxoss_militant_leadership
A couple of days ago He published a review on the latest version of PCLinuxOS. The first draft was, admittedly rather skewed because one feature He deemed essential was buried in the help documentation. Once He started getting feedback to the contrary, He immediately looked at things again and adjusted large portions of the review to reflect things more accurately.
http://www.thepcspy.com/blog/pclinuxoss_militant_leadership
Damn, that’s a completely nonsensical approach by Texstar to PCLOS criticism, but not entirely unexpected. This is the same guy who. regarding Mandriva possibly going under, posted “If anything this would be a great thing as many of the issue they have to fix in PCLinuxOS has to do with shotty work (Bandaids) and patches that mandriva is putting out.” That’s a helluva thing to be saying about the folks who are building the OS you reskin and push off as your own.
I find it really curious that your first comment was moderated once at -5 as “JMcCarthy”
Then you re-edit it repost it as “Liquidator” and it make a better story , or you used even more alias so that this time it doesn’t get buried ?
How many stupid Alias do you have retarded coward ?
Seriously , Textstar as been providing RPM and is own distribution for many years ( around 10 ? ) , he had a difference of opinion about is reviewed work by a hack of a childish amateur who wrote a one page defamation of his work without really having tried it or reviewed it , as proof its rewrite after he was called on is lies , and the PClinuxOS user called the reviewer on it , Texstar even apologized on the site for its stance who might have been too harsh at the time , because after all he is a great guy , great developer and real contributor to GNU/Linux and Free software.
I am sorry I can only conclude the opposite of the immature , stupid , moronic , coward comment you posted.
The hard work , long contribution and many years that Texstar as dedicated without any real support and resource , are proof enough that your fabricated lies , false paintings of one of the greatest contributor we have in the GNU/Linux community and attacks are to be met with the most harsh of distinction and I hope that the majority of OsNews reader’s and the moderator see you for what you are.
– Moulinneuf
Edited 2007-05-29 02:03
Moulinneuf – whilst I can understand your anger, I’m going to mod you down for a personal insult which wasn’t really necessary. Furthermore, what proof do you have that “J McCarthy” and “Liquidator” are the same individuals? I see no IP address tracking facility, so unless you know something I don’t know…
As to the link to the review by Liquidator etc, I’m not sure what the point was, other than to try and stir up trouble and give PCLinuxOS a bad name. I don’t have a problem with what Textstar did, the word ‘hammer’ could have been construed many ways. Since it’s a blog, it could be simply just encouraging PCLinuxOS users to post their thoughts on the blog. Ubuntu users are far worse than this, they’re like parasites imho, as an example if you make an anti Ubuntu comment you get hammered and modded wrongly down on these very forums. Censorship by bullyism isn’t very good, and that’s all that type of censorship is.
The real issue is that the reviewer didn’t really make an effort to dig deep and do his homework when reviewing PCLinuxOS. I think this is really what riled Textstar and I can understand why it would rile him.
I remember writing a comprehensive review on Libranet 3 a few years back, and I made *sure* that I knew what I was talking about (I was a beta tester after all lol). If you’re going to do a review, do it right. If you’ve done it right, and you’re factual, people generally will accept what you’ve written.
Anyways, I haven’t read the reviews yet, will do so tonight when I get off hell, I mean work!
Cheers,
Dave
Disclaimer: I don’t use PCLinuxOS, I’ve never used it, probably never will use it and I don’t work for Textstar and I’m not affiliated with him.
I find it really curious that your first comment was moderated once at -5 as “JMcCarthy” Then you re-edit it repost it as “Liquidator” and it make a better story , or you used even more alias so that this time it doesn’t get buried ?
An interesting claim. Though with no basis in reality. I’m fairly certain if this was a troll account it’d be rated much lower.
How many stupid Alias do you have retarded coward ?
You degrade the entire content of your by resorting to such attacks. Going by your English and Average Comment Score I feel inclined to mention something about a teapot calling something something –but I don’t quite remember what it is because I’m retarded–
Seriously , Textstar as been providing RPM and is own distribution for many years ( around 10 ? ) , he had a difference of opinion about is rev…..
That is all very well and good. Unfortunately it has no bearing whatsoever on his (or lack of) maturity.
If it makes you feel any better though, I am too curious about the difference in post scores considering it was the same link.
Edited 2007-05-29 05:42
You’re not fair. When I decided to comment there wasn’t any message, and when I posted the message I saw there was one already that was modded down to -5 right from the beginning, which makes me think that only a moderator from OSNews can have done it in such a small period of time, who knows why. Why on Earth would I want to mod some one to -5 just because he said the same thing? And I would need 5 different accounts. That wouldn’t make sense.
Indeed that first post is not only -5 but locked as well. It had to be OSN staff, and quite frankly it reeks of Thom.
I’m not sure, but I think it’s in the code if you hit -5 it autolocks the message.
Ok, so what happened?
1. Someone wrote a sh*tty review of PCLOS.
(Actually, the improved version is still pretty sh*tty, imo, so I don’t even want to imagine what the first version was like…)
2. Texstar is pissed and encourages PCLOS users to hammer the blog with the “truth”.
3. The review get’s an update.
4. Texstar apologizes.
I think his behavior was not perfect but understandable.
I don’t want Texstar to be a fscking saint, his great work with PCLOS is more than enough!
The points that need to improve are (in this order):
– more&faster servers
– more packages
– bigger community
– more frequent releases (although, at least for me, PCLOS betas have been a lot more stable than Kubuntu final releases)
– sudo
– *buntus world map for the time selection (This is, again imo, the only real point in the review that caused all the trouble.)
Furthermore, I think that the effect of community size is sometimes exaggerated. Many things are not distro specific.
It is probably one of the best “out of the box” distros I ever tried. Sane defaults, good looking, polished.
And about the fuss, keep reading the thread and you will see that the founder apologyzed for his behavior, what we don’t see that much these days. I understand a bit him even though I don’t agree with his treatment of the issue. When you put a lot of effort on something, you really get pissed off if someone has a fast test and start saying “but XXX is better on this”. Even more so if you are with your head too hot God knows why.
Regarding Mandriva layoffs what was really said.
“Oh no. I’m very sorry to hear that and their latest release is really really good too. I hope they continue to be successful as they bring good things to Linux.”
http://tinyurl.com/2q6kvd
Also:
“I believe Mandriva is making the moves it needs to make so really nothing Im worried about. They put out a very good release and I bet the fall edition will be even better if they keep doing what their doing.”
http://tinyurl.com/2vnwvb
It must be true because they’ve been saying it since 1998 lol
Linux is ready for the desktop. It was in ’98. But only to highly technical users who found a need for it.
In 2005, it was ready for grandma to use, if someone set it up for her.
In 2007, it is ready for most geeks, and most parents providing it is set up for them (easier now to set up than XP in most cases).
The “year” of the Linux desktop is every year. Every year it is the right choice for a more diverse range of users. The year of the Linux desktop is the year that you decide to switch and find the switch works.
I believe that it is not with a bang that Linux will gain its double digit desktop market share, but with a steady and ever faster climb.
Say what you will. I think Texstar has DONE one hell of a find job in tuning this distro. It is one of the great Linux desktops. I hope he continues to support it. He has put a great Linux product on a lot of desktops.
just my 2 cents ;]
I think PCLinuxOS is a great distribution. I’ve tried it and I like it. Problems that I experienced with their test releases seem to be gone.
Everything is superslick and it works properly. My brother laser printer, my network card, my sound card — everything works. I tried printing from Konqueror, very professional prints with sharp fonts. I installed NVIDIA drivers with no problems. The fonts are slick. Everything “just” works. Sorry Xandros, I am not trying to copy the term you first used but there is only one description really, it just works
The only complaint I would raise is the menu structure. Some of the settings could be quite hidden such as the Beryl theme manager. What I would do is put “Settings” under one menu and then have like “Themes->KDE Styles” “Themes->Beryl Themes” — just an idea.
Well done again for this amazing work. PCLinux is a great desktop OS.
Edited 2007-05-29 11:11
I spent much of yesterday installing PCLinux2007. I have very little experience with linux, ran into a few problems because of a faulty installation disk. But, the operating system recognized my network, everything I have tried has worked.
I did have some installation problems and some ignorance problems, but the PCLos community, including Tex, helped me work through them.
I am very pleased with this operating system, and have deep-sixed windows.
yes, pclos is my linux of choice too. i`m tired to explain people why and what. just want to mention how fast it boots and runs, and how updated and stable .tex packages are, how great mklivecd is, again. cheers.
and – when linux will replace windows? i don`t know, it`s vista-time now…
This reminds me of a time when I got to work several years ago, and saw a very hot chick sitting at reception. I got to my cubicle and started telling my coworkers how hot that girl was… only to find out she was one of my coworkers’ wife! Oops.
Yes, you can’t undone some things you do. Or say.
But in this case, I think Texstar comments were taken out of context. After a year of so of using PCLinuxOS, I can tell he’s a gentleman, a whitehat cowboy. “Hammering someone with the truth” is just a bad choice of words (which is rare for him to do) for a good thing, which is to “point out the truth”, or “clarify some misconceptions”.
PCLinuxOS is great, and I use it in all my machines (4), not only because of the OS itself, but because I found its developers to be decent, hardworking men. So, in a sense, that’s the only reward I can give for their great work, having no credit card to send them funds.
Heh. Well, at least it was somewhat complimentary.
The reviewer thinks sudo should be configured to allow him to become root more easily.
Apparently he is normally an Ubuntu user who thinks this is the way it should be.
In fact, Ubuntu is a royal pain in the butt because it blurs the distinction between root and normal user. Sometimes you can work around it but many times you can’t. And at the command line, having to type sudo all the time is an irritation. Fortunately it can be easily bypassed with an su with approptiate options and the setting of a root password.
I do agree that it would be nice to be able to open any program needing root access and be prompted for the root password. You don’t even need sudo for this. Having a file manager menuu item on Opensuse that can open in super user mode is good, but all programs should allow for the prompting for the root password WHEN NEEDED.
KDE provides options for launching apps.
Hit Alt-F2 for the Run Command and click Options to run as different user is good enough way for me. Or if you don’t know the apps binary name, right selecting it in the menu then ‘Put Into Run Dialog’ does same thing.
PCLinuxOS is lean and simple.Nice and easy configuration panel much like Yast but with more advanced opportunity of setting security options quite easy.
Just ran pclinuxos in a vmware server instance.Good performer 🙂
And it’s the first or one of the few were i don’t feel the inmedied need to change the default theme.You can argue about taste but i like the PClinuxOS.
OK, I’ve read the review linked to in the main article and here are my thoughts:
“Unfortunately, for a system that promotes itself as ‘radically simple’, I was surprised by the lack of descriptions for the applications.”
Well, duh, I don’t know what system he’s been using, but OS X and Windows are NO different here. In fact, every Linux distro that I’ve used since 97 has not done this. Maybe I’m missing something 😉
“I also found it somewhat cumbersome to navigate the menu system and to find what I was looking for. ”
Ah please, is this the best complaint you can make? I mean, I can throw this at just above *every* other single Linux system in existence…
“The very handy tool ‘sudo’ was not configured to allow my every-day user to become root.”
A matter of personal preference. I’ve personally never liked sudo…perhaps this author wants it because a certain other popular distro that he probably uses/likes has it? Again, in nearly all of the Linux distros that I’ve used, and Live CDs that I’ve played with, very few of them have Sudo enabled. In fact, the only one I can think of that does this, is Ubuntu. I’m not knocking Ubuntu here, but there are more than one way to skin a cat, and just because Ubuntu does it that way doesn’t mean that *every* single other Linux distro must do it that way (or that Ubuntu has it right for that matter).
“Also, opening ‘My Computer’ from the Desktop did not show the location bar.”
That’s a fair comment.
“There was also no power management configured out of the box, so users with laptops will need to set this up manually”
The reviewer didn’t make it clear if they installed PCLinuxOS 2007 onto his or her (Chris is a unigender name) computer. If they didn’t, then power management not being turned on, for a live CD is not something that I’d consider an issue. If it was installed onto the PC’s hard drive, then yes, I could argue that that’s a faux pais on the developer’s part. I remember older installs of Redhat 7.x that installed power management if you chose a laptop install. I suspect the modern installer doesn’t offer this fine grained installation choice, because hey, we want to keep it [the installer] simple! This is a perfect example where keeping it simple destroys the usability or funcationality of it and why I don’t always think that keeping it simple is a good idea.
“Perhaps they’ve taken proven components from various distributions, put them together and made it simple to use.”
That’s pretty much the way open source has worked for a long time now. It’s a proven way to efficiently develop, improve and customise software and operating systems.
Now onto Oli’s review (linked to by the first poster):
“The world map in Ubuntu’s setup seems to be the best idea I’ve seen.”
Hello, Redhat started this way back with Redhat 7 and the Anaconda installer from memory. Some people prefer graphical, some prefer text, you can’t keep them all happy. That said, I do agree that the menu does look messy and ill organised – it’s a fair call comment.
“The screen after this also never seems to understand that my BIOS clock it set to local time. ”
Very few systems recommend that you do this, but set the local time outside of the BIOS. There are technical reasons for this, but with my aging brain I can never remember them 🙂 Oli – you’re one of the few Linux users that I know that does this. Oh, and I’m pretty sure neither Windows or OS X give you the option to set time from BIOS. 🙂
“Partitioning is dangerous and by no means good for a novice user to play with and even for a seasoned pro, going through and making your own partitions is a pain in the arse that I’m sure we’d all like to forgo.”
Huh? Well, golly me, Linux distributions have offered partitioning schemes for quite some time now, have you ever tried FIPS Oli? That was my first way of partitioning and dual booting between Linux and Windows 98. Windows and OS X get away with this problem, because they do NOT encourage multi booting operating systems, in fact, they try to make it as hard as possible for the obvious reasons. If you’re installing this onto a single PC, with no other operating system, I suspect it’ll be as we Aussies say ‘a piece of piss’. That said, I’ve never liked the Mandrake disk partitioning utility 😉
“Konq isn’t a viable alternative”
That’s bloody baloney. Bullshit. I could think of a few other Aussie comments to make about this comment 😉
“The layout of software in the K Menu isn’t something I’m particularly impressed with.”
I’ve never been entirely happy with kmenu myself, but it’s no worse than most other menu systems built into operating systems, certainly no worse than XP’s retarded fancy new menu style.
“Just a dirty comparison in size: #ubuntu on freenode has 1253 users in while #pclinuxos-support has just 25. Not the world’s most accurate metric but one all the same.”
Ah. I thought he was an Ubuntu user, this confirms it. His point is? Did he try the PCLinuxOS forums? I presume that he would have probably gotten an answer, maybe not instantly, but gees…you’re using a free (as in cost) operating system, and you want instant free support as well? That priviledge costs you big money if you’re using OS X or Microsoft Windows.
My impressions after reading both reviews is that both reviewers are Ubuntu users, and consider the way that Ubuntu does this as “the way to do it sonny boy”. This is not necessarily the case, and I would argue that it’s a bad thing to ask for, because, as the old saying goes, “variety is the spice of life”. If you prefer Ubuntu, go use it. Don’t bother reviewing non Ubuntu distros cos they don’t work the way that Ubuntu does, or you prefer. If you’re going to criticise a distro, make valid points and remember to criticise others as well, not just make an example of the current distro being reviewed. To be honest, both of the reviewers sound like Linux newbs (nothing wrong with that) who have a very limited set of knowledge and very limited experience with GNU/Linux. I’m not saying I’m an expert, I’m not, but I’ve been around probably a lot longer than either of them, and seen a wee bit more than either of them.
Here endeth my dissection of their reviews.
Dave
Since when did novice users being able to reinstall graphic card/sound card loading up the latest of games flawlessly?
Its vista time because of the directx even if SDL is far more superior devs arnt simply intrested .
And as far as it goes for clones Reactos will never be finished it hasnt even ntfs support
I rather run my nlited windows for now
You’re a little off topic but allow me to summarise your comment:
I don’t know how to use Linux so it sucks. I mostly use my PC for games. Windows rules.
*sigh*
I think both this release and Mandriva 2007.1 show us that Mandriva and it’s related cousin PCLinuxOS are far from dead and keep kicking buts!